Syria: "We’ve been working every day around the clock"

Testimony by Dr Abu Huthaifa, a surgeon from Aleppo, Syria

13 October 2016

If you want to know what it's like to be a surgeon in east Aleppo, watch Dr Abu Huthaifa’s story.

Syria and Russia have been conducting a bombing campaign against east Aleppo since the end of September, which has resulted in more than 1,600 war wounded. Besieged east Aleppo is home to 250,000 people, and the few remaining hospitals in the area are overwhelmed. Doctors work around the clock without sufficient resources to treat patients.

If you want to know what it's like to be a surgeon in east Aleppo, watch Dr Abu Huthaifa’s story. "When a patient leaves the operating theatre and as another is brought in, we try to do the day-to-day things like praying or eating. We’ve been working every day around the clock." - Dr Abu Huthaifa.

"So we have got used to the daily scenes of mass bombing when the hospitals are so crowded with wounded people that we have to step over them to reach other patients in need," says Dr Abu Huthaifa.

"Over the past two weeks, since the intensity of the bombing by Bashar’s and Russian forces increased, we’ve been working almost 24/7 and we’ve been receiving wounded people around the clock. There have been killings on a daily basis," says Dr Abu Huthaifa.